"L.A. vision: a towering sign," by David Zahniser (LA Times) - Astani Enterpri... - The Diigo Meta page

• 26 May 08
  

  Yule Heibel

  File this under "life imitates art"? There's a fascinating battle happening in LA over whether or not Sonny Astani, businessman and developer, should be permitted to install a new kind of LED-generated image, 12 stories above the street and 14 stories tall, on the side of his 33-story condo building currently under construction in downtown LA.
  
  The inspiration? Opening scenes in Blade Runner of downtown LA, showing "a skyscraper-sized advertisement portraying a Japanese woman smiling before popping a snack into her mouth. Astani says an image, such as that of a flying sea gull, could now even travel from one building to the next."
  
  I have to admit this sounds really cool, but I can see why many factions in LA would oppose this, too. We're all familiar with the really bright illuminated advertisements -- even Victoria has a small version of one, installed outside the arena on Blanshard at Caledonia. It's bright, too bright. But Astani proposes a much more modulated, artistic, and dimmed level of lighting. If the images could look as subtle -- yet powerful -- as Blade Runner's, it could work, but there's no garantee, that if permitted, subsequent developers would follow in that "artistic" style.
  
  Another aspect is this: the proposal, if it's art, also calls into question just how intrusive public art should be in public space. Does it have a right to be so intrusive as to be impossible to ignore? Can I, as a citizen, be obliged to register public art -- and admittedly, it would be impossible not to register this project?
  
  Is part of what captures my attention/ imagination regarding this project its uncanny fusion of subtlety and assault, packaged as visual stimulus?
  
  Another question: is this an art form that expresses a corporate and anti-pedestrian city ("...neighborhood anchored by Staples Center and L.A. Live, the hotel and entertainment complex that includes the recently opened Nokia Theatre"), fitting for LA where people don't walk anyway (but just wait: it'll show up soon enough on the very v

  astani advertising billboards outdoor_installations public_art public_space los_angeles

  • Attach
    an animated sign 14-stories tall on the 33-story condominium
    project he is building in downtown L.A.
  • The proposed sign would loom 12 stories above the sidewalk at
    9th and Figueroa streets, facing the 110 Freeway. And city planners
    say it would represent a first in the city's residential architecture
    -- a sheet of light-emitting screens spaced close enough to form
    a vast electronic image, yet far enough apart to allow occupants
    to look outside.
  • 9 more annotations...

  • • Astani's proposal is only the latest controversial effort to
      bring massive advertising and colorful light shows to the neighborhood
      anchored by Staples Center and L.A. Live, the hotel and entertainment
      complex that includes the recently opened Nokia Theatre.

      
      

      Civic boosters promised two years ago that L.A. Live would transform
      Figueroa's entertainment district into Times Square West -- a
      California counterpart to the bright lights and in-your-face
      advertising seen at Broadway and 42nd Street in Manhattan.

    • Although much of L.A. Live is under construction, the district
      around Staples already has some of those colorful lights, including
      the red squares that percolate like soda bubbles on the exterior
      of the Met Lofts and the spotlights at Nokia that strafe the
      sky,
    • at least two high-rises could be partly covered with rows of
      tiny panels embedded with LEDs, or light-emitting diodes -- a
      concept viewed by some at City Hall as the next frontier in outdoor
      advertising.

    • In November, the City
      Council approved Fig Central, a hotel and condominium complex
      across from Staples Center that will have at least one 330-foot-long
      band of animated advertising. And at least seven more electronic
      signs are planned for the rest of L.A. Live, according to city
      officials.

      
      

      The courtyard outside Nokia Theatre has 12 LED signs -- enormous
      screens that intersperse concert footage with advertisements
      for mobile phones and Coca-Cola. The theater is adorned with
      more screens and billboards, a fact that disappoints some neighbors.

    • "It might actually be beautiful," she said. "It
      might actually be art, as opposed to just ads."
    • The billboard question seemed finally to have been answered
      in 2002, when then-Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, after 14 years
      of trying, won passage of a ban on outdoor advertising. But that
      law also contained a provision allowing the creation of "supplemental
      use districts," places like Hollywood, where billboards
      would be permitted in large numbers.

    • he argues that his LED displays should
      not be considered billboards.
      
      

      
      

      To make the images less blinding, the signs would have a brightness
      of only 1,200 candelas at night -- roughly one-sixth the intensity
      of the signs found at L.A. Live, Astani said. And because the
      movements of his LED sign would be slower than the images on
      a television screen, Astani contends, his 14-story sign would
      be graceful, not gaudy.

      
      

      "We don't want to create a monster," Astani said. "If
      this is bright or intrusive, we cannot sell the condominiums.
      It will have to be so unique and unobtrusive that people will
      be proud to live behind it."

    • If approved, the signs would contain artistic content during
      10% of their operation, with another 10% devoted to community
      announcements, according to Astani's proposal. The sign rules
      also would dictate the speed with which the animated images change.

      • 

        Yule Heibel on 2008-05-26

        Only 10% artistic content sounds pretty mingy...
    • Most of the companies installing the new lights have ties to
      City Hall. L.A. Live builder Anschutz Entertainment Group has
      given $485,000 to causes backed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
      The developer of Fig Central has given $100,000; Astani has given
      $150,000.
• 27 Apr 08
  

  Kevin Burrell

  Source: LA Times dot com
  Date: 01.27.2008
  By: David Zahniser, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

  Out door advertising Digital

Public Stiky Notes

• 
  Yule Heibel on 2008-05-26
  Only 10% artistic content sounds pretty mingy...

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